“That’s the kind of balance you need,” said Geithner. “Why is that the case? Because if you don’t try to generate more revenues through tax reform, if you don’t ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American, then you have to — the only way to achieve fiscal sustainability is through unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for middle class seniors, or unacceptably deep cuts in national security.”

This coming from a rich guy who cheated on his taxes.

If Obama wins a second term being an American will be a burden, not a privilege, regardless of one’s economic status.

Update: Check out the price for oil and Brent crude on the ticker above his head.

Ok, so now in order to be allowed the “privilege” to be an American we have to fork over money? On the contrary, it is he who has the privilege of being the “Treasury Secretary” and it appears that needs to be revoked. Screw you Timmy. I’m an American no matter what.

If we don’t tax the wealthy more, national defense will suffer. What a load of horse hockey! The military is already losing a massive amount of funding. Timmy go back to whatever rock you crawled under from and leave the complicated problems to those who aren’t corrupt lying weasels.

“This is one of the biggest things I’m going to be pushing back on this year, this notion that this is somehow class warfare, that we’re trying to stir up envy,” Obama said. “Nobody envies rich people, everybody wants to be rich. Everybody aspires to be rich, and everybody understands you’ve got work hard to be successful. That’s the American way.”

This “envy” thing must have polled really bad in some focus group. But that meant that something had to replace “envy.” So when I saw the Geithner statement yesterday, I knew that the latest “talking points” must have been distributed around the Administration.

I found the “privilege of being an American” breathtaking, but why must only the “rich” be so “privileged” ?

We now seem to have rights to “gay marriage,” a “living wage,” to “life,” to “”choice,” to “die,” to “know,” to “forget,” to “privacy,” to “be forgotten,” to “education,” to “work,” to “play,” to “bear arms,” to “carry,” to ‘bare legs,” to “health care,” to “research,” to “read,” to “food,” to “organise and to bargain collectively,” to “hike,” to “vote” (even when dead),” to “counsel,” to “free speech,” to “protest,” and to “remain silent.”

Well, I’ll agree with one thing Secretary Geithner said: it really is a privilege to be an American!

Of course, Mr Geithner felt so privileged that he tried his hardest to minimize his personal tax burden, and wound but being one of those who didn’t pay his fair share. Then, when caught, due to confirmation, he first tried to pay just that tax which was due for which the statute of limitations had passed.

That’s the part that gets me. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that Mr Geithner simply made a mistake — for several year’s running — concerning reimbursed payroll taxes. But when the mistake was discovered, he paid in only the taxes for his 2003 and subsequent years, because the statute of limitations had expired for his 2001 and 2002 returns, which also had the error. He then voluntarily paid back for 2001 and 2002, once a Senate confirmation hearing was coming up. The original mistakes could have been just that, mistakes. Initially withholding the payments for 2001 and 2002 is simply rank hypocrisy . . . or Democrisy.